University Of Tennessee IFC Decides To Make Low GPA Standards Less Low

At a post-Butt Chug University of Tennessee, and yes, now everything that ever happens at the University of Tennessee must be referred to as “post-Butt Chug,” it’s their post-9/11 or Anno Domini, I imagine that the Inter-Fraternity Council is more focused than ever on improving the image and reputation of the school’s fraternity system. You can’t blame the IFC. After all someone almost died putting something up their own ass on IFC’s watch, more or less. That’s a problem the executives at Vivid Video should be dealing with, not the executives on UT’s IFC.

Regardless, standards are being raised! That’s always a good thing, especially when your standards had until then been laughably low. Such was apparently the case with the UT IFC minimum GPA requirement, which used to lay comfortably near rock bottom, at 2.3.

UT’s Inter-Fraternity Council approved a measure last week that will raise the G.P.A. standards for its chapters from 2.3 to 2.7.

The change takes effect this fall.

Earlier this year, a Greek life task force released a report with recommendations for UT’s fraternities and sororities, but it did not specifically recommend academic changes.

In case anyone is wondering why there were no academic changes recommended by that task force, it’s because they were preoccupied with, uh, other issues. I assume the post-evaluation meeting went something like this:

IFC President: So were there any academic changes or policies that you thought might be worth suggesting after taking stock of our Greek system?

Task Force Leader: No. No I’m just going to repeat what we already said. It’s really the only thing you need to know. Don’t let anyone else put ANYTHING up their asses, especially not on fraternity property. Also, for the love of God, do not let any of your fraternities hold a press conference ever again. Ever. Again.

2.7 seems like a perfectly reasonable number. While I assume it’s technically below the all-campus and/or all-male average at UT (most times those tend to range from 2.8 – 3.1), it should be easily attainable for the fraternities, since they are almost always above those averages anyway, let alone any number below that. Such is already the case with 14 of the 17 Tennessee fraternities, as they already have GPAs higher than the new 2.7 requirement.

To the three fraternities that are not above the 2.7 threshold, may I suggest instructing your members to each enroll in an art elective next fall to help boost your grades. Yes those classes tend to be obnoxious for a number of geed related reasons, but the irony of taking a class populated by GDIs, who somehow manage to get lower GPAs than fraternities despite taking those sorts of classes en masse, to raise your own GPA above theirs, is rich and excellent.

Apparently this IFC policy has impressed the UT administration.

The Dean of Students Office says it is impressed that the IFC made these changes on its own.

Good to hear, though the Dean of Students did add, “While it’s nice to see IFC take the initiative, we still don’t give a shit about them, or their opinions, and if we ever feel like making sweeping changes to anything relating to fraternities or Greek Life, we’ll do so without taking anything they have to say or any goodwill they’ve accumulated into consideration. I mean, fuck ’em, really. That’s how we roll. But yeah, this was nice.”

^Arbitrary: Based on random choice or personal whim rather than any reason or system. I know what I said, and no one is obliged to say fuck pike. There’s no rule that says fuck pike. They say it because they want to…aka on a personal whim. Go fuck yourself, chief.